"Why does crafting with a runic sewing kit NOT add any properties to hats?"

Hats are not considered "armor" by the crafting system, although they are for loot drops. This is probably an oversight, considering they do have resists and behave exactly the same way as leather or metal helms; making them craftable in the same way would give everyone more fashion options! It's something we can certainly investigate in the future.

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"Why are caps and bonnets not possible (so it seems) as magical loot on monster corpses?"

I have no earthly idea. They definitely are not on the list of possible random armor pieces that can spawn on monsters, though, unlike all the other hats. This has been submitted as a bug!

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"How are the stats/resists/skills of animals and monsters (including tamables) generated? Are they generated separately? In other words, is it possible to have top stats/resists/skills on the same animal/monster, or there is a hidden cap preventing this from happening?"

Leurocian says,

"Each creature is generated with a set range of stats/skills. Some of the stats/skills may be fixed and can only be one value. Others may have a minimum and maximum range. In the latter case, it’s a roll of the dice. It is possible, though, for a particular creature to have the maximum stats/skills for its kind upon spawning, but that’s highly unlikely."

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"Do the mod intensities from runic made armors/weapons still have a linear distribution?"

Yes they do - what this means is if a runic hammer has an intensity range of 60% to 100%, it's exactly as likely to get a 60% intensity property as a 100% intensity property.

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"What is the barding difficulty for players and other NPC who can't be lored? Does hit point affect barding difficulty of players the same way as on other monsters?"

A creature or NPC treats a player character as having a barding difficulty of 125, with one possible exception - if the player has been Discorded, his barding difficulty will be 120. Hit points, skills, stats, etc, do not affect that value - it's fixed.

NPCs, even human ones, have a barding difficulty range based on their stats/skills/etc. just like any other creature does.

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What's To Come:

The big news this week is that we are rapidly approaching a Test Center publish - shooting for mid-next week, barring complications. We also have the next event all QAed and ready for live testing - some of you may remember that the clock has been ticking in Moonglow for quite some time. Well, that clock is winding down...

Since these announcements have been stretched out over several weeks, I've consolidated them all here so you get an idea of some of the non-event-related things that are going to be in this publish (this is not the full list of publish notes, just the highlights):

New this week: <UL> <LI>Darkwood Armor will now have 100 Luck instead of Night Sight as part of its set bonus <LI>More relatively minor worldbuilding fixes (incorrect tiles, spots where players got stuck) <LI>Insured items can no longer be placed on a vendor for sale <LI>Hairdressers and body sculptors will no longer go on walkabout <LI>Several other smaller bugs and exploits fixed </LI>[/list]Previously announced: <UL> <LI>Weapons should no longer lose properties when runic- or exceptionally-crafted. This should apply to everything, including ML recipe weapons <LI>ML recipe bows will be able to be exceptionally crafted and get the Arms Lore bonus as well <LI>Greater Dragons will give scales and barbed leather <LI>Armor that doesn't have a meditation penalty - like leather armor - won't lose properties when runic-crafted <LI>Runic-crafted elven armor won't roll Night Sight as a property <LI>Parasitic, Darkglow, and Invisibility potions can be placed into kegs </LI>[/list] <UL> <LI>Greater dragons are visibly named "Greater dragons" <LI>Fixed a couple of worldbuilding trouble spots (places where folks would get stuck - one in Wrong, one in Magincia.) <LI>Made several fixes that we ain't telling you about until they're live on all shards </LI>[/list]Pet Ball Changes:
<UL> <LI>Pet summoning balls should unhide the summoner when attempting to summon her pet. <LI>Pet summoning balls should have a couple second casting animation with the chance to disrupt like other spellcasting. <LI>Pet summoning balls should have a reuse delay of 15 seconds. <LI>Pet summoning balls cannot be used while in animal form. </LI>[/list]
Here is how the new AI should behave:

Commands:

Guard - The pet should guard as it does currently.
Follow - The pet should follow. It will not attack anything, even if it is attacked. (unless it is guarding)
Come - The pet should walk to. It will not attack anything, even if it is attacked. (unless it is guarding)
Kill/Attack - The pet will attack its target as it does currently.
Stop - The pet will stop attacking. It will not attack anything, even if it is attacked, and may wander.
Stay - The pet will stay where it is currently, and will not attack anything, even if it is attacked. (unless it is guarding)

Note: The pet will revert out of passive mode if the pet's owner dies, if the pet is stabled, traded, player character transfers, player and pet log off, etc.

QA is currently reviewing these changes internally. Once the changes pass internal review, they should appear on a public Test Center for an upcoming publish.

Examples of new macro command combinations:

You can tell your pet to guard while it's following you. This will put it in autodefend mode for itself and its master.

To turn off guarding, tell your pet to stop or kill/attack.

So for passive follow, you could do 'pet name' stop, 'pet name' follow me, and it will ignore attacks on you or your pet.

For autodefend follow, you could do 'pet name' guard, 'pet name' follow me or 'pet name' follow me then 'pet name' guard. It doesn't matter what order you initiate the guard command. While your guarded, autodefend should work as normal. The pet will follow you in this case, but will fight whatever attacks you or itself.

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Next week should be exciting - we can't wait to get this build up on Test. It's just so satisfying to clean up so many of these old issues, plus the event has been a long time coming!

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